Turtle Bay - should they be listed?

[NickDavies]

This has been suggested to me more than once before at crawls. I guess the question is would it satisfy people? In theory it wouldn't be too difficult, but we would then have the problem of defining which places get the restaurant tag...

OK how would you deal with this place?

Q went in one day and foud a pub he loved. I went in the next day and walked away from a restaurant.

If you're interested despite best efforts I haven't been in since. It's hours are very limited to food times, even at weekends.

[Delboy20]

What I enjoy most about visiting pubs (apart from the beer of course) is the infinite variety, from ancient stone-built country inns to high tech city bars, and from the exceptional to the execrable. I think it would be very wrong to exclude any category because they don't conform to an ideal, and there will always be grey areas around any definition wherever you try to draw the line.

I have no great problem with listing Turtle Bay-type establishments where people do genuinely go for a drink by choice (no accounting for taste). I would suggest that it is more useful to have questionable ones listed, with suitable comments so that you know how useful they are to the average drinker and can make your own decision about whether you wish to patronise them or not.

Well said.

[Delboy20]

Just to be clear, I wasn't having a pop at you personally - I did wonder whether to say it was you in the original post, but thought that really would sound like I was having a go!

No problems this end

That is why I was quick to "own up" as it were.

Just to set the record straight, I am no great lover of these bars (nor do I work for them)

I just like freedom of choice and variety and oppose dictatorship.

List the "pubs" and we can all decide if we want to visit them.

[Dave M]

I have no great problem with listing Turtle Bay-type establishments where people do genuinely go for a drink by choice (no accounting for taste).

Well yes, this actually helped my thinking.

My policy was always if you theoretically can go in and just have an alcoholic drink without needing to order food then it can be listed.

Now I'm thinking of chains that I've been in for just a drink. Turtle Bay, Chiquitos, Las Iguanas - in those I was able to go to a bar, order a drink without the need of waiting staff and drink it somewhere not set out for food. I wouldn't be able to do that in Frankie & Bennys or Cafe Rouge.

OK how would you deal with this place?

Q went in one day and foud a pub he loved. I went in the next day and walked away from a restaurant.

Interesting one, I notice on their Facebook page they list themselves as a restaurant. Maybe that would be a criteria for tagging, if the venue themselves think they're a restaurant that seems fair enough.

[rpadam]

List the "pubs" and we can all decide if we want to visit them.

Agreed!

[rpadam]

Well yes, this actually helped my thinking.

My policy was always if you theoretically can go in and just have an alcoholic drink without needing to order food then it can be listed.

Now I'm thinking of chains that I've been in for just a drink. Turtle Bay, Chiquitos, Las Iguanas - in those I was able to go to a bar, order a drink without the need of waiting staff and drink it somewhere not set out for food. I wouldn't be able to do that in Frankie & Bennys or Cafe Rouge.

Interesting one, I notice on their Facebook page they list themselves as a restaurant. Maybe that would be a criteria for tagging, if the venue themselves think they're a restaurant that seems fair enough.

Not sure about Frankie & Bennys, but the few Cafe Rouges I’ve reviewed have all let customers in for just a drink without needing to buy a meal.

[NickDavies]

Well yes, this actually helped my thinking.

My policy was always if you theoretically can go in and just have an alcoholic drink without needing to order food then it can be listed.

Now I'm thinking of chains that I've been in for just a drink. Turtle Bay, Chiquitos, Las Iguanas - in those I was able to go to a bar, order a drink without the need of waiting staff and drink it somewhere not set out for food. I wouldn't be able to do that in Frankie & Bennys or Cafe Rouge.



Interesting one, I notice on their Facebook page they list themselves as a restaurant. Maybe that would be a criteria for tagging, if the venue themselves think they're a restaurant that seems fair enough.

Possibly...but FB pages tend to be up to the people on the ground rather than corporate grown ups. Sometimes, I suspect, it's left to teenage offspring. FB tags are many and varied and based on US mores, and you see Yer Genuine Olde Worlde Pubbe tagged as something silly like Modern English Restaurant despite the food offering rarely diverging from a packet of Walker's.

[sheffield hatter]

I guess we'll have this debate again in a year or two.

[sheffield hatter]

Cafe Rouge and Turtle Bay on the other hand are usually (always?) town centre bar/bistro/cafe/restaurant places, and I can't understand why they are on this site. Man the barricades!

Having read the points made by other contributors to this debate, I have changed my mind and have voted to retain all such "pubs" on the site.

List the "pubs" and we can all decide if we want to visit them.

What he said.



I'm inclined to agree that there should be a way of distinguishing them from "proper" pubs though. If only someone could write a review...

Here's a thought. What about a generic review of the chain which could be applied to all the outlets listed? Saves all that travelling about the country doing one more Slug & Lettuce, etc. Just review the whole caboodle in one representative visit.

[bcfczuluarmy]

The Cafe Rouge's listed on here in my areas covered have never been a problem. I've not added any not listed due to the topic of this thread, or done them yet may get round to them one day but will keep on my own spread sheet. Turtle Bay fine a real ale drinker won't go near them but a ticker like me will as there is no issues to having drinks in them and as Blackthorn states they have pumps. Adding bottle only places is daft regardless of being real ale/craft. The internet and supermarkets fill this sector IMHO.

We are old enough to make your mind up of where to go and some CAMRA branches have them listed so if they do then an elitist bunch of real ale drinkers accept them as establishments for Tom, Dick and Harry to rock up to and get a drink.